When retro California shoe brand SeaVees wanted to update their popular Plimsoll for spring, they decided on bleeding madras. Hand-spun and yarn-dyed in India, the plaid fabric—which would fade with each wash—was extremely popular in California during the 1960s. And to find the right madras, SeaVees paired up with another historically-inclined brand, Gitman Vintage. "Madras is the perfect fabric for summer," says Gitman's Christopher Olberding. "It's light, colorful and cool." For the shoes, Olberding and his team dug up two '60s-era plaid patterns from their archives and pre-faded them. "We would've loved to have used true bleeding madras, but that would've colored your feet for the entire summer."

StepLively

Plimsolls were developed in the 1830s and originally called 'sand shoes.' The nickname 'plimsoll' arose because the horizontal band joining the upper to the sole resembled the plimsoll line on a ship's hull.